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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23966605">While the World Sleeps</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolfie_Dragon/pseuds/Wolfie_Dragon'>Wolfie_Dragon</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fullmetal Alchemist (Anime 2003), Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood &amp; Manga</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Gen, No Spoilers, One-Shot</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 16:40:11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,677</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23966605</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolfie_Dragon/pseuds/Wolfie_Dragon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Takes place before most events of FMA/FMAB. One night in Central City, Alphonse reflects on living as a suit of armour.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>While the World Sleeps</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The sun had set a while ago.</p><p>Alphonse only noticed when his brother started snoring. He looked up from the newspaper puzzle he was solving to see Edward sprawled on the couch of their hotel room in Central. A small puddle of drool next to his mouth shone in the electric light.</p><p>Chuckling, Al shook his head (well, helmet) before standing up as quietly as he could. Of course the armor still creaked, and the chair he had been sitting on groaned in relief when his weight lifted from it. But thankfully Edward was sleeping too deeply to notice. With practiced ease Al picked up his brother and carried him to the bed. He hummed a lullaby his mom used to sing as he tucked Ed in. The boy probably didn't notice, but Al liked to think the song made his dreams a little nicer.</p><p>Dreams. It had been so long since Al had had one. He could barely remember what they were like. What sleep was like. It wasn't that Al missed sleep as such. What he missed was being able to lie down and not have to think for a while.</p><p>Ed snorted a bit in his sleep, making Al chuckle again. Time to start his nighttime routine.</p><p>It's remarkable how much free time you have when you don't have to sleep or eat or even go to the bathroom. He felt guilty about it once, back when they had just lost their bodies. Ed spent each waking moment working to adapt to his automail and rehabilitate, but his body always hurt and needed rest. Al, meanwhile, had to learn how to fill days and nights with a body that felt and needed nothing at all. It felt unfair, that Brother would work himself to exhaustion day after day and Al would still beat him easily in a sparring match despite not needing workouts or exercise.</p><p>But it also felt unfair that Ed got to eat nice food day after day. Got to feel the wind on his skin. Got to feel Winry's hugs.</p><p>No, he couldn't continue that train of thought. It only leads to madness. It was one of the first things he learned about dealing with the lonely nights. He has to keep himself busy while the world sleeps around him.</p><p>So Al turned away from Ed and lifted his helmet. He didn't have or need a lot of possessions. Compared to Ed's suitcase, which was filled with clothes, papers, alchemy books, automail maintenance kits, and assorted knick-knacks, the only things Al really needed were some cleaning supplies for his armor, some chalk, and his books, all of which he could store inside himself with plenty of room left for stray cats.</p><p>He dug around inside his right arm for a book and opened it to the first page. Al liked to think reading stories was his way of dreaming, letting him forget his own life and vanish into a different world for a while. This book was a romance novel about a noble knight and a beautiful princess. It was the kind of cheesy tale that Ed would mock endlessly, but Al found the simple stories… reassuring in some way.</p><p>Maybe it was that with his metal body he never developed the urges most teenagers his age were obsessed with. Even Ed had his magazine of dirty pictures hidden in the bottom of his suitcase, which he would take to the bathroom for "a long bath" when he thought Al wouldn't notice. Al had no idea what those urges felt like, but the romance books described it so clearly in so many different ways that he could almost understand it.</p><p>It made him feel a bit more like a regular human.</p><p>It wasn't just sex and romance either. The books and poetry he read all night would describe the taste of food, the warmth of sunlight, the sensation of grass under your feet. Things he could remember with the help of the metaphors written in the books.</p><p>He had been reading for hours, wanting to cry over the cruel king keeping the princess and the knight apart, when there was a knock on the door. After briefly checking that Ed was still asleep, Al moved to open the door, having a suspicion what it was about.</p><p>"Phone call for you, Mr. Elric," the hotel employee softly said, smirking when Al responded with the same "Thank you, I'll get it now," he always used when this happened. It was almost like a password now, identifying the conspiracy keeping these phone calls a secret from Ed.</p><p>Carefully ducking through the doorways, Al reached the telephone room and picked up the indicated phone, already knowing who it was.</p><p>"Hey Winry, couldn't sleep?"</p><p>A glance at the clock indicated it was 3 AM, but Winry sounded awake and alert. Al could hear some kind of machinery in the background as she talked.</p><p>"Pulling an all-nighter, but I needed a little break. You know how it is, Al. Thanks for always listening to me rant," she said, and he simply chuckled in response. They had established this routine a while ago, when he and Ed had visited Resembool for repairs. Al had joined Winry as she pulled an all-nighter. Talking helped her stay awake and focused on her work, and it kept him distracted from the dark thoughts. So before they left Al had given her the phone number for the hotel they always stayed at when they were in Central so they could continue these midnight talks.</p><p>"Is Ed maintaining his automail? I swear he never oils it! When do you think he'll have to come back for maintenance again?" Winry eventually asked, and Al had to hold in a laugh. He knew what Winry was actually asking, and that she missed them. The girl hates them being so far away.</p><p>Al was keenly aware that Winry loves them. He knew it better than Ed, probably. Of course, he also knew better than Ed that Winry felt a different love to Ed than to him. He probably knew that better than Winry did. Some days their blindness to love made him want to scream in frustration, but often he just found it cute. One day they'd figure out they were perfect for each other, just like the characters in his books, and Al would be there to tell them they had been idiots.</p><p>Okay, he wouldn't say that. He'd bite his tongue and be supportive as he'd always been.</p><p>"Oh, you know how often Brother gets banged up. I'm sure we'll be back before you know it! And I'll make sure he doesn't get <em>too </em>banged up," Al simply said to reassure her.</p><p>They talked a bit longer, about the customers Winry had, and the new lead for the Philosopher's Stone Mustang told them about. In the background was the melody of Winry's tools ticking and buzzing as she worked. Those sounds always reminded Al of home.</p><p>It was 4 AM when Winry hung up, and Al had another three hours to himself before Brother would wake up. Not really feeling like continuing the book, he decided to go for a walk. The hotel staff wasn't surprised at him leaving at this time. That was one reason they always stayed here, the staff didn't care about why one of the Elric brothers was always wearing an enormous suit of armor or never seemed to sleep. He reflected on that as he walked through some smaller streets, no destination in mind.</p><p>Back when they burned their house down and left Resembool, Al had thought he was used to living as a piece of armor and all that came with it. The endless nights, the lack of senses, even having to duck his head whenever he went through a door.</p><p>He hadn't really considered how other people would react to him. Getting through the nights meant avoiding thinking too much about his own condition, so it hadn't truly sunk in how <em>weirded out </em>the average person would be of him. A thirteen-year old boy wearing a seven-foot tall medieval armor no matter where he went. A child alchemist who didn't eat, didn't sleep, didn't feel pain. Oh, he got good at pretending, at excuses and explanations when random strangers asked questions or military officers got too curious. He didn't like to lie, but it was better than having to explain how he got his soul bound to a piece of armor.</p><p>That was one reason why he liked to walk at night. The streets were empty. No kids to point at him, no teenagers giggling behind his back, no traffic backing up because drivers slowed down to gape at him. The only people he saw were a couple of drunk men going into one of the few buildings where the lights were still on. The sign said "Madame Christmas'", and Al knew that there was a different kind of sleeping happening there.</p><p>As Al walked, he noticed some broken things here and there. A bent street lamp next to a car with a big dent. A broken window of a train station. A torn up doll lying in the yard of a house, next to a doghouse with a guilty looking dog. Each broken item prompted Al to take out his piece of chalk and draw a quick transmutation circle to repair it. If anyone noticed the flash of light from the transmutation, they didn't show themselves. Al liked to think of it as equivalent exchange: Because he used alchemy for evil, he had received eight extra hours in the day. The least he could do is to use some of those hours to do good with alchemy.</p><p>It didn't matter if no one would ever know it was him, Alphonse Elric, doing it. He may have been robbed of a lot of things in his life, but at least he had these nights to be the alchemist in the armour without shame while the world sleeps.</p>
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